Merry Christmas and a Gift!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I have a sweet little shadow box to share today and, as a holiday gift to all my readers, I'm sharing a printable download so you can make one for yourself!

I have been saving this tiny vintage ornament box for years, knowing it would be perfect for a Christmas scene, but I never quite got around to using it. I came across it a few weeks ago and decided I would not let another year go by without creating something. I thought it would be a waste to use the original, so I took it apart and scanned it, then printed it out.

Tim Holtz's Christmas Paper Dolls are the perfect size for this little box. I glued some strips of fiberfill to the bottom for snow, then added tiny trees, the paper dolls, and a tiny deer.

The front is embellished with Tim's tinsel twine, a vintage ornament, number token, and a die cut branch. I cut tiny snowflakes from glitter paper using a die from Karen Burniston's Evergreen Pivot Panel set.

Click on the image above to get the full sized scan for downloading. I printed it out on heavy  8.5" x 11" cardstock, adjusting it so it filled the full sheet.  It came out much lighter than it looks in the scan (which I actually liked better!) - you can experiment to see what works for you. Then, just cut it out and score where you can see the fold lines, fold it up, and you're ready to decorate!

You can find the supplies I used via the links below.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! Thanks so much for all of your comments, pins, and support over this past year. I haven't had as much time to create as I have in other years, but I'm hoping 2019 will be full of creativity!

Karen Burnsiton Designer Challenge - Ink It!

Hi all! Hope your December is off to a great start. It's time again for the Karen Burniston Designer Challenge. This month our theme is 'Ink It.' I love this challenge because I've gotten lazier and lazier in my cardmaking - using lots of designer paper and not much in the way of inks and stamping. Not good for a blog called Stamptramp! It was really nice to pull out all of my supplies and get creative - I haven't been doing that enough lately and I really miss it.

I decided to create a woodsy feeling Christmas card. The base is plain kraft cardstock. On the front, I stamped a woodgrain image from Tim Holtz and embossed it with Ranger's Weathered White embossing powder. I love the look of weathered wood it gives!

The chunky letters were created by cutting multiple letters from thin cardstock with dies from Karen's Alphabet set. I stacked about five cutouts, gluing each one down securely. The top letter was cut from foil covered cardstock and glued on last. The edges were colored with a silver Sharpie so that they blended in. To give it an aged appearance, I dabbed it with black and silver paints. The wreath was created from a piece of wired greenery.

Oooh, the best part, right?! I told Karen I feel like I'm overusing this Twist Panel die, but it's so much fun and so easy to use! And SO perfect with Tim Holtz's Blueprint stamps.

I just got Tim's small stamping platform and thought I'd experiment with using it to color the Blueprint images. Especially when stamping on watercolor paper, it's so nice to be able to restamp if the image isn't very clear the first time you stamp it. For this card, I stamped first with Archival ink - very important to use a permanent ink since I knew I wanted to watercolor these images.

After that, I colored the stamp with markers and stamped again. I used a waterbrush to pull the color into the image, but it wasn't intense enough, so I ended up coloring it directly (I still think it give it a cool look tho!). After it dried, I reinked the stamp, this time with clear ink, and embossed with clear embossing powder. I think the embossing really makes the image pop and kind of redefines the lines. I'm quite sold on stamping platforms now!

Don't those images just pop now?! You can barely see the shine from the clear ep, but it really adds a lot of dimension. The background on the card was made by coloring the greenery and pinecone stamps with markers and then stamping randomly. On the bottom I used a text stamp to give more interest. Finally, I used a greeting from Karen's Holiday Word Set to add a sentiment.

You can find the supplies I used via the links below. Oh, and Simon Says Stamp is offering an adorable Tiny Wreath Builder stamp and stencil set from Gina K free with ANY purchase right now! If you haven't seen the wreath builder stamps and stencils, they are so cool. And of course perfect to use with your stamping platform! I think I am going to go do a little shopping. :-)


Thanks so much for stopping by today! Be sure and check out Karen's blog tomorrow for a fantastic new tutorial and lots of inky inspiration from the whole team!